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Ragnar Fastflint
"Everybody get off my shooting spot!" - Ragnar Fastflint, trying to snipe from the Top of a ship, while sharing it with two pirates, a dozing lizard, a cat and a dog. "I mean I was considering speaking for him, but never mind let's kill him." - Ragnar Fastflint Ragnar Fastflint is a self-professed dwarf "sellbow", a mercenary down on his luck with ambitions of money and fame. He was the only mercenary to be interested in Ensatina Desmognathus's quest for vengeance. He has since served as the group's ranged support, animal translator and field medic. Biography The Sellbow The only mercenary to apparently take up Ensatina's contract (and apparently with no sign-up bonus), Ragnar noted this with a degree of sourless but nonetheless served loyally. While in Ruben, Ragnar encountered and spoke to a cat named Pawel, much to his companions' surprise and bemusement. After a some moments at his expense, Ragnar learned that the cat had a powerful amulet which it had lost, and two rings which could be used to enhance its power. Eventually, after finding the necklace, Ragnar went to find the cat after it had run away after hearing Adelliah suggest that they kill it. Despite Ensatina's scorn, Ragnar convinced her to give her the money to buy the rings from the cat, which fused together to make a more powerful amulet that allowed him to summon the spirit of cat. This also allowed him to leap great heights like a cat. Later, Ragnar ran into his friend, Captain Ironhand. After catching up, Ragnar's friendship with Ironhand, in combination with Ironhand's liking for Adelliah, managed to get the group a free lift on Ironhand's ship to up the coast to a beach near where the dead fish had been found. Ragnar spent most of his time on the beach talking to a highly territorial Giant Crab, which initially desired to eat him. After some careful persuasion, Ragnar managed to develop a rapport with the crustacean, from which he confirmed the others' suspicions that pirates had been dumping alchemical waste offshore. After convincing the others to clean up the beach, the Crab gave Ragnar access to a chest which had washed up on the beach. In the later boarding action on Ironhand's ship, Ragnar spent most of the fight on one of the fighting tops, initially to snipe before being joined by two pirates, Ensatina, a cat familiar and a dog. Later, when Ironhand tried to convince Ragnar to kill the pirates Ensatina was entreating to surrender on account of them being too dangerous to be left alive, Ragnar agreed, but suggested they let the pirates off the ship and then sink the boat they were allowed off the ship on, so that no danger would come to them. Unfortunately for Ragnar, Glamon put an end to negotiations when she failed to successfully steal the pirates' orders, appearing in plain sight and causing the pirates to attack. In the ensuing fight Ragnar would resurrect both Glamon and Adelliah. After the group found out that Gaius the Alchemist was responsible for the pirates dumping the waste offshore, Ragnar followed the others to the swamp where the alchemist lived. Tasked by Lindsey von Baal to clear the area of the local hostiles and to find her cat, Ragnar was immediately asked by the others to go find the cat using his animal-speaking abilities. He ignored this and followed the others to fight the ghouls and the magic hostile plants. Sure enough, he heard a cat speak to him and found Lindsey's cat, a skeletal creature instead of the brown tabby Lindsey described it as. The cat introduced itself to Ragnar as Nyon, and sensed that Ragnar had the cat's necklace on him, empowering it with greater enchantment. Nyon informed Ragnar that he and two other alchemists, one being Pawel, the cat Ragnar met in Ruben, were once powerful alchemists who somehow ended up as cats. Around the same time, Ragnar accidentally ended up graverobbing an elven bow he found on the ground, and found it distasteful. Afterwards, Ragnar eagerly learnt the spell to create rain, having been concerned by the fire-starting antics of the others. Unfortunately, the next set of foes they ran into were bone creations, including a giant bone spider, which managed to immobilise Ragnar, Adelliah and Ensatina with its webs, and Ragnar was quickly overwhelmed when the spider jumped to him, and he could not escape, leading to Ragnar pushing up the daisies until Glamon resurrected him. Later, Glamon turned the spider into a chicken, leading to Ragnar being able to understand the rather concerning threats of the bone spider now that it was a chicken. After another set of graverobbing Ragnar stopped protesting against the others' eagerness to despoil the dead despite his misgivings and was given a helmet that made him a better leader. When the group encountered some scavenger dogs near Gaius' laboratory, Ragnar healed them and got information about ambushers ahead of them, as well as the fact that Gaius was guarded by people in black armour. These were defeated relatively smartly by the group with this prior warning, with Ragnar killing both the Bone Destroyer guarding Gaius' laboratory, as well as the armoured guard, Nathana Octavian. When they entered the lab Ragnar was slower than Adelliah or Glamon in ransacking the place, but found a key which he accidentally threw over his shoulder and landed on a top shelf, to his embarrassment. Ragnar helped Adelliah threaten Gaius when they encountered him, and while initially not inclined to killing Gaius, changed his opinion when Gaius poisoned Ragnar when Ensatina attacked Gaius. Sod the Walking After Gaius' death at Ensatina's hands the group travelled to Carolia in search of Lord Caligo, and Ragnar lead the pace for the march, but after taking his helmet off he became tired and fed up, as were the others, as his helmet was enchanted to make him a better leader. In the swamp Ragnar had also appeared to get his hands on what appeared to be Adelliah's mother's bow. On entering the city, Ragnar and Adelliah spotted some men kicking a lizard beggar, who stated that there was no place for them in their society; they in turn told them to leave him alone. After the men were driven away, Ragnar healed the beggar, who told them about a cat. Ragnar rather awkwardly spoke to the cat, who was named Ricky, aware that it was in public, but Ricky responded in the common tongue to Ragnar's surprise. After learning that Ricky and the other cats were former alchemists who had been turned into cats by the side effect of a spell they were performing, and feeding Ricky with a fish pie and a nice herring, Ragnar's amulet was upgraded one more time. Ricky mentioned they could get into the castle by the sewers, but Ensatina took them to the front of the castle, as their fears that Ensatina still had a bounty on her head were apparently unfounded when they checked the bounty board. There they encountered two dwarf traders with a broken-down cart, Ragnar helping them unhitch their ox and spoke to it before Ensatina ordered him to hurry up. After bribing their way in through the front gate, Ragnar used his amulet to leap up to a window to let down a rope for the others to enter the castle. In the hallways as they looked for Lady Caligo, Ragnar went back to Lord Caligo's daughter, Esmerelda Caligo's room after Glamon had finished talking to her, closing the door after seeing her room fill with deathfog. Ragnar then fought alongside the Firestarters to defeat Lady Caligo and accompanied them to the castle hall. When Ensatina ordered her companions to give up their arms, Ragnar hid his precious resurrection scrolls, but was unhappy to hand over his grenades. When they were forced to break out due to Esmerelda flooding their cell with blood, Ragnar had to grab his arbalest again, but his grenades detonated in the fire that was being thrown around to his distaste. After freeing Belladonna Young and Portnoy Godfrey, who agreed to help them against Lord Caligo, Ragnar gave Portnoy a spare bow and some arrows. When fighting Lord Caligo in the hall Ragnar was frustrated at the lack of high ground to which he could leap to, and spent the fight providing support fire, healing and resurrecting both Ensatina and Glamon. When they returned to the town Ragnar assured Glamon that while Ensatina had a chilly attitude towards her, Ensatina always ensured that Glamon survived each fight. As they took a shortcut through the Whispering Wood to get to the Source mine where Esmerelda had fled to, Ragnar helped fight the void-infused creatures there and later leapt up on top of a ruin to find a chest mimic, managing to steal from the minimic with only a scratch, telling the mimic to work on it. The End of the Journey "Honesty, I need to get rid of some of this stuff!" - Ragnar Fastflint In the Source mine Ragnar summoned his cat familiar outside a fight, having promised it earlier, only for the Frozen Troll which Ensatina rescued to eat the cat, to Ragnar's dismay. They later found the corpse of Branderson Goudamaster, a cheesemonger whom the Firestarters had attempted to coax some cheese from, before Ragnar found a cowl that greatly boosted his armour, only for it to be destroyed when he put it on. They also found a dead dragon at the bottom of the mine, surrounded by gold, and Esmerelda looking on. When they fought Esmerelda, Ragnar's cat was eaten by the troll again to his dismay. Ragnar's ability to hurt Esmerelda was affected by Esmerelda petrifying his cat, and by the confines of the mine where leaping was difficult. With Source-infused Esmerelda's death and Esmerelda's throat being slit by Glamon, Ragnar busied himself grabbing as much loot off the dragon as he could, leaving the now-dead troll for the others, grabbing over 10,000 gold in the process in addition to various magical items of value. In one night he had become one of the richest men on Epidicae, rich enough to retire for good. He accompanied the others back to Ruben one last time to see Timmy cured by Ensatina, before departing to hang up his bow. Before the party divided Glamon included Ragnar in their combined family for their shared adventures, and Adelliah offered Ragnar a place at the circus as a trickshot. Ragnar considered it, before saying that he had enough money to retire but might show up for some fun. As they left, Ragnar gave "a few hundred" gold to the innkeeper for the damage they had done when their quest started, to the innkeeper's surprise, before the innkeeper decided to burn down the place for the insurance money. Personality and traits "Sod that, I'm leaping. Walking is boring, I haven't done since I got this amulet and I'm not going to start doing it now." - Ragnar Fastflint A mildly-successful mercenary, Ragnar is a dwarf with a healthy sense of self-preservation with a strange array of skills. A reasonably-competent archer despite his size, Ragnar is also capable with first aid, and later learned some basic healing magic, but resorted to resurrection scrolls. He is also reasonably well-travelled. Originally, Ragnar deserted from the military alongside his friend Garrett Ironhand. Like other Rivelloni dwarves, Ragnar can petrify, albeit at a very short range. Ragnar is also capable of talking to animals, which is seen by others as Ragnar making animal noises. It is not known how he acquired this skill, but he is remarkedly unashamed by it. However, this can backfire on Ragnar, especially when he walked into a chicken pen in Carolia, and was driven to frustration by the constant clucking of the chickens once they learned he could understand them. Ragnar is also somewhat of a hedge mage, quickly choosing to study water magic from books he found on his journey, on account of having to travel with lizard mages. Thanks to his cat amulet, which Ragnar is very protective of, he can leap great distances and summon a cat familiar with which he has a rather fond relationship with, despite inadvertently getting it killed in combat often. He often used the amulet to move around on the battlefield and to reach high ground. While giving off the appearance of a down-on-his luck mercenary, Ragnar's somewhat-unthreatening appearance hides the pragmatism and ruthlessness of a true sellbow, illustrated in his willingless to overlook customs of war and to deceive surrendering enemies, and to sink lifeboats. However, he does not like graverobbing, but can turn a blind eye to his companions' graverobbing and is willing to profit from it. Ragnar was there for the money and while he did very much like his companions (often resurrecting them when they fell instead of booking it), he was not unwilling to hoard items to sell unless the others directly asked him for anything he had picked up. Category:Death in the Family Category:Player Characters Category:Bentham